As The Rain FallsPrologue The wind blew surprisingly strong and broke tree branches out of place, flinging them in random directions. The street lights flickered like strobe lights until they blew out completely as the rain poured from the sky like a waterfall. A small girl stood in the shadows underneath a large tree, her clothing soaked through to the skin as she shivered in the dark. She was looking around for something; someone. She was sobbing, and tears streamed from her swollen eyes down her cheeks. Her hair was plastered to her head and face from the rain.
“Michael,” the girl whispered softly, staring down the street into darkness. “Where are you, Michael?”
Lightning flashed, followed shortly by thunder booming not very far away and more lightning after that. Another bolt struck the tree the girl was standing under. She heard the crack of the branch breaking and she looked up, starting to run at the same time. But the branch had fallen on top of her, pressing her to the ground. She thrashed her arms, but it did not help. She could only close her eyes and hope nothing happened to either her or Michael. She continued to cry as the branch scratched at her face.
Then, suddenly, she felt him get into her sense’s range. He kept getting closer and closer. The rain let up a tad, but not noticeably to those ignorant of Michael’s ability. He was sprinting toward her. In the instant that he was only 300 feet away from her, three more people appeared in front of him; Vincent: the girl’s father; Peter: her best friend; and another person that she didn’t recognize.
Peter was pacing and the other person stood by him. Vincent took one step toward Michael. Peter was the only one she could feel moving. The girl guessed that Vincent was talking to him. Then Michael and the other person walked up to each other. Then they vanished. As if they were never there. The storm had immediately stopped as soon as Michael was gone. The girl sobbed more.
“No!” she said angrily. “No! You took him away! You took him from me!” She thrashed her arms, although she knew it wouldn’t free her or help get Michael back. So she concentrated on Peter and Vincent.
Peter stopped pacing and Vincent was walking away. The girl heard Peter shout something to him as he walked away, but she didn’t know what it was. And then Vincent was out of her range. She could only feel Peter there. Peter started walking toward her. Anger bubbled inside her.
“How could you,” was all she could choke out before Peter came to help her.
One As she continued to struggle underneath the branch, she saw Peter’s converse shoes come toward her. He reached down and touched the branch. And it was gone. Peter helped the girl up and she brushed mud off of her clothing.
“You okay?” he asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. The girl nodded. “What happened to Michael?” she asked quietly, looking up at his face. She wiped away the tears. “Did they…kill him? Is he okay?” Peter sighed and looked at the ground.
“I’m sorry, Rosalie.” They began to walk back to the girl’s house.
As they walked, both of them were silent. Rosalie’s mind was racing with thoughts of Michael and Vincent. Michael was right after all. He betrayed us. I shouldn’t have trusted him. She was thinking of when they first met their father. They were only four years old. And yet Michael already knew that something was wrong with him, like he had a big sign that said “Don’t trust me!” and only Michael could see it. Rosalie told him that he was being paranoid. Vincent only stayed for a couple days and barely said a word to either Rosalie or Michael. From what each of them overheard, he was arguing with their mother for most of the time.
They both found out why they fought later on when they were about eight years old. Rosalie started noticing how she always knew when people were near her; what distance they were away from her. She asked Michael if he could do the same and he called her crazy. She had heard of twins being able to know when the other was in trouble or angry, but nothing like this. A few days after Rosalie noticed her “ability,” Michael got upset about someone saying something mean to him at school. He sat in his room and grumbled to himself. A storm had suddenly made itself heard by the sound of thunder booming very close to their house. Michael had also been crying and when the tears started, so did the rain. They figured that his ability worked with his emotions. Later that week, someone new came to their school. A boy their age named Peter. He spent every second he could with them; coming home with them, sitting with them at lunch, etcetera.
The three of them became best friends, although at the time they didn’t know he was under orders to be their bodyguard. Not one person thought it suspicious when Rosalie started spending more time on the internet. Nor did they notice she was researching abilities similar to theirs in detail. She found nothing, so she searched up twins with abilities, finding slim chances any of her findings were correct. The internet suggested that both she and Michael were: A.) Exposed to chemicals at birth, B.) Aliens from outer space or a different dimension, or C.) Crazy in the head and needed serious psychological help. Rosalie thought it possible for the first answer, though she highly doubted it. The second she threw almost completely out of her mind as she was reading it. And as for the third—though it might be the real answer—it made her very, very angry. So she gave up.
Soon after her quest failed her, Rosalie and Michael were told something delightful. Peter admitted to having a secret ability as well. He can touch any object and make it disappear, “but only objects,” is what Peter made clear. Now, this was a huge surprise to them. Michael felt more excited than angry, unlike Rosalie, who scolded Peter for a good five minutes about keeping secrets. Nowadays she gets very, very embarrassed when she thinks of that moment, but at the time she didn’t think about what she was doing. Peter found it quite funny, though he tries not to let Rosalie know that.
For Michael and Rosalie, it was strange for Peter to perform his ability as an example. Once they believed him, he revealed that he knew about their abilities as well. Michael had many questions about why they had these powers. And Peter answered them. He explained how he was a good friend of Vincent’s and agreed to watch over his children when they found out about their abilities, whatever they may be. He explained how Vincent was from another world, called Etalec, and the mixing of Earthling and Etalecan’s genes causes a spontaneous ability. Everyone that is a “Halfling" has different abilities, depending on the individual. Have Michael’s ability as an example. Michael is an emotional person, so he can control weather with his emotions. Peter told the siblings he was also a Halfling, as they could clearly see. He also told them about his sister who also has abilities.
Peter helped them learn more about their abilities. For instance, Rosalie can only tell where people are if they’re 800 feet away at maximum. And when Michael’s angry; thunder and lightning happen, when he’s confused; there’s lots of fog, etcetera. Although having these abilities was extremely stressful at the time, they Michael and Rosalie have learned to cope with the pros and cons. Peter promised that it got better with time. He was right.
Rosalie looked up at Peter while they walked to her house. He was trying very, very hard to keep a straight face, but you could tell he was fighting tears behind his cold green eyes. Rosalie tried to fight back an angry comment like “You could have stopped him and saved Michael” or “What’s next, are you going to help him kill me, too?” They had only a few more footsteps until they were in front of Rosalie’s house. She didn’t know how she was going to explain this to her mother. She wiped away the tears from her eyes again.
As she unlocked the front door, she felt Peter’s eyes on her. She ignored him and noticed her mother pacing inside. Rosalie opened the door and stepped nervously inside as she was enfolded in her mother’s arms.
“Thank goodness you’re alright, Rose!” she exclaimed, tightening her grip around her daughter.
Rosalie shrugged her mother away, although she wanted to hug her for an eternity.
“Where’s Michael?” her mother asked, looking at Peter. He looked at his shoes, his hands folded behind his back.
“He’s gone. Vincent took him away.” Rosalie felt no emotion in her voice, most likely because she had let out all her anger and sadness in her thoughts. “Peter was there. I got trapped while looking for Michael and Peter helped me back here.” Her mother was speechless.
“I’m sorry, Kim,” Peter whispered, not meeting her eyes. “I couldn’t do anything to stop him.”
“Is he okay?” her mother asked. Her eyes were hopeful as she stared at Rosalie.
“Vincent took him away, Mom. We can’t help him. I don’t know where he is.” She tried to sound calm, but she ended up shouting at her mother angrily. Grief was overwhelming her.
“He might have taken him as a hostage back in Etalec,” Peter suggested.
“You mean he might still be alive?” Rosalie’s mother asked.
“It’s possible,” he replied. Rosalie could hear the uncertainty in his voice, but her mother enfolded him in a hug anyway.
“Thank you, Peter,” she whispered.
Rosalie led Peter to the twins’ room, where she sat on the end of her bed while Peter stood by the door. He closed it and walked over to Rosalie’s bed. He sat next to her.
“I wasn’t lying to your mother before. About Michael,” he said softly. He put his hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah, right,” she whispered. “You think I’m as gullible as my mother? You know me better than that, Peter.” She looked up at his face, but she didn’t see what she expected. He looked hurt, not disappointed as Rosalie thought he would.
“It’s almost as if you want him to be dead,” he hissed. He got up and went to the door, putting his hand on the knob. “But if you’d rather not see him again, then fine. Denial is the way for some people.” He started turning the knob, but he felt Rosalie’s hand on his arm.
“You…you could help me get him back?” she asked. He nodded. He started to turn around, and she hugged him. And he hugged back. She pulled away and smiled.
“Get some rest, I’ll come back to pick you up in the morning.” Rosalie agreed, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep with everything that had happened that night. Peter opened the door and started to walk out once more, but Rosalie grabbed his arm again. He turned to see what was wrong. Rosalie had tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Thank you so much, Peter,” she whispered. They were tears of joy.
...
In a very long hallway a boy and a girl stood side-by-side. The boy was tall with black hair in his eyes. The girl was about as tall as his shoulder. Her hair was blond and a little longer than shoulder-length. They were both dripping water onto the wood floor. It was raining in the night outside the window, but not pouring. The girl pointed to one of the many doors on the right wall.
“That’s your room,” she told him, as she handed him a small silvery key. “It’s not much, but it’s what we have. You can get comfy and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Kasha,” the boy said. He unlocked the door and went inside. It was a small room, with a single bed against the wall in front of him and a closet to his left. There was a window above the bed and outside he could see the rain letting up. He wiped tears out of his eyes. On the bed was a note. The boy picked it up and read it. It said:
Michael,
I’m very sorry about what happened. I hope you can forgive me.
Don’t worry about your sister. Peter’s looking after her.
Make yourself at home,
Dad. The boy scowled at the note. The way he called himself “Dad” as if they were close. He hadn’t called his father “Dad” since he was five. He crumpled up the paper and threw it against the wall. Even though he disliked his father, Michael did appreciate the update on his sister. He wondered when he would see her again.
He looked in the closest and found it already filled with clothes. He saw another note. The handwriting was different, though.
Peter had some extra clothes that he didn’t mind lending you.
I figured you were the same size.
Kasha. Michael reminded himself to thank her again. There were also some books in the closet, but they didn’t look too interesting. He sat on the bed and looked out the window. The rain, of course, had stopped. There were other kids outside now, most of them looked older than him. They sat in a circle and talked. They seemed like they were having fun. Soon somebody knocked on the door.
Michael turned and saw Kasha standing in the doorway, smiling. She glanced at the crumpled piece of paper on the floor and sighed sadly.
“He means well, your father,” she told him. She walked over and sat on the end of the bed next to Michael. “He’s trying to help the half-bloods. I understand that he left your family, and you have every right to be mad at him, but you should give him a chance.”
“He may have gotten me convinced to come here with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m ‘warming up’ to him.” Kasha sighed again.
“Well, if you’d rather just go to bed I can give you a tour tomorrow. I can introduce you to the others, too.” She patted his shoulder softly and got up to leave. She was almost out of the room when Michael cleared his throat. She turned and looked at him, smiling sadly.
“Thank you, for all this. It’s very thoughtful.”
She nodded and left, closing the door behind her. That night, Michael had a dreamless sleep.
(To Be Continued...)
